E-text prepared by Iona Vaughan, woodie4, Mark Akrigg,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
(http://www.pgdpcanada.net)

FIRST EDITION              April, 1913
Reprinted               November, 1913

THE

GREAT GOLD RUSH

A TALE OF THE KLONDIKE

BY W. H. P. JARVIS

AUTHOR OF "LETTERS OF A REMITTANCE MAN"

TORONTO
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA,
LIMITED
1913

TO

COLONEL SAMUEL BENFIELD STEELE

C.B., M.V.O., A.D.C.

ONE TIME OFFICER COMMANDING

THE

NORTH-WEST MOUNTED POLICE IN THE

YUKON TERRITORY

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED

AS A

TOKEN OF AFFECTIONATE REGARD

[Pg vii]

PREFACE

There is a freemasonry among Klondikers which rules that no tales shallbe told out of school. If, therefore, this were an historical novel, ifI were telling tales and seeking to escape censure by the subterfuge ofchanging names, I could hardly succeed. Let me take the case of Poo-Bah,for instance. The reader with a knowledge of the early days of Dawsonaccepting the story as historical, would fix as the original any one ofhalf a dozen men indecently caricatured. But if he is told the characteris a composite one, that it is the personification of Dawson graft, or,in other words, that it is the sum of a merger, he will understand and,I think, make no complaint.

Otherwise the story may be accepted as the author's best effort toconvey a true account of the different phases of the world's mostremarkable stampede. The stories of corruption among the officials inDawson are those which a visitor would have heard on every hand, and atthe present time there are many old-timers in the Yukon who will telltales similar to the incidents I have introduced in my story.[Pg viii]

When one of my characters speaks of the Dawson officials as pettylarceny thieves and highway robbers, it is to be understood to be asample of the phraseology in vogue at the time.

The different types of prospector I have attempted to portray are thoseI have met, lived with, and mixed with. Should it appear I have giventoo much space to the humble economies of the miner's life, I shalladvance as my excuse the lack of our literature in this particular.

I have also made a humble attempt to establish the respectability of theminer. So much has been written to compromise him, and so manyimaginations have drawn lurid pictures of his morals, I feel it his due.

In a general way the reader may accept anything in my story which hasnone other than an historical interest as being accurate.

I am indebted to the Rev. Archdeacon Macdonald, now of Winnipeg, for thestory of his first discovery of gold. For the story of the discovery ofFranklin Gulch I am indebted to Mr. William Hartz, who also furnishedthe accounts of the finding of gold in the Stewart River. These accountshave never before been written.

W. H. P. J.

Toronto, Canada.
January 1913.

[Pg ix]

CONTENTS